Tuesday, July 12, 2011

The Wind, Here In The Sea Of Clouds

“You find in this industry that the simpler things are, the better off you are in the long run. We believe in the fulcrum, and we believe in the inclined plane. The wheel we’re not sure of.”

An engineer from the nuclear energy
industry, quoted by John McPhee

I’m working industriously
on a science fiction romance
about an astrophysicist
and her theory that when the Moon
transits the Earth’s magnetosphere
small electrostatic effects
repeated for thousands of years
play a key role in creating
the smooth features called lunar ‘seas’
which don’t dominate the far side
but which do dominate the face
of the Moon exposed to the Earth.

I suspect when the story’s told
it will involve two scientists,
one dinosaur and a love song.

I can type the story. Film it.
Sing it. Draw it. I really can’t
perform an interpretive dance
to communicate the content
of the characters and the plot
but I’m hoping someday to meet
a brave Russian ballet dancer
who’ll try out stuff like this with me.

I suspect I’ll be better off
in the long run if my story
gets told simply, with simple tools.

But my philosophy’s not clear
on how long the “long run” might be
and I am equally unclear
on what’s better in “better off.”

Stop-motion animated films
are more fun than static drawings,
even drawings made with fancy
high-tech graphite pencils that flow
like subtle watercolor paints
when brushed thoughtfully with water.

I believe that unless I meet
a brave Russian ballet dancer
who’ll try out stuff like this with me
I will ignore this “better off”
and I will ignore this “long run”
and this science fiction romance—
about an astrophysicist
and her theory that when the Moon
transits the Earth’s magnetosphere
small electrostatic effects
repeated for thousands of years
play a key role in creating
the smooth features called lunar ‘seas’
which don’t dominate the far side
but which do dominate the face
of the Moon exposed to the Earth—
will get told as a puppet show
about two pretty scientists,
one dinosaur and a love song.

I think it’s good not to be swayed
worrying which way the wind blows.

A very bad nuclear-power-plant accident could kill tens of thousands of people. The plants are so carefully engineered, however, that the possibility seems remote. The reactor core would have to melt down, and the outer containment shell would have to be breached. Then an invisible, odorless, imperceptible cloud would drift downwind. How many people died would depend on how many people were downwind.